DIY History | Transcribe | Civil War Diaries and Letters | George C. Burmeister diary, 1862

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1862-01-01

Wed. 1. Once more am I permitted to hail a new epoch of time, strange things have happened in my past life but stranger still I expect will happen.  The year A. D. 1862 will probably be pregnant with more momentous issues pertaining to this country, than the American historian was ever before permitted to record of his republican government.  Portentous political whirlwinds hover over this nation; the question of self government is now pending for a solution, and it remains for the American people to say, whether is is a simple myth under which we have been living with the belief of it's being a wise and just government, or whether it is what it professes to be, the freest and best government on earth.  Two thirds of a million of freemen are at this time upon the fields of battle, to prove to traitors that this government is most emphatically and shall ever be the land of the free and the home of the brave.  May the great Jehovah protect and guide our glorious ship of state, safely through the fiery ordeal which envelopes it now, [thus?] prove to the world that "liberty and union are one and inseperable". May I progress in every thing that is enobling and be the happy recipient of a few of dame fortune's choicest gifts.  Why shall I not be happy when millions of my fellow beings are? I attended Amos [Klepfus?] party where I enjoyed myself very much, returned home about four o'clock A.M. felt very cold.

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Wed. 1. Once more am I permitted to hail a new epoch of time, strange things have happened in my past life but stranger still I expect will happen. The year A. D. 1862 will probably be pregnant with more momentous issues pertaining to this country, than the American historian was ever before permitted to record of his republican government. Portentous political whirlwinds hover over this nation; the question of self government is now pending for a solution, and it remains for the American people to say, whether is is a simple myth under which we have been living with the belief of it's being a wise and just government, or whether it is what it professes to be, the freest and best government on earth. Two thirds of a million of freemen are at this time upon the fields of battle, to prove to traitors that this government is most emphatically and shall ever be the land of the free and the home of the brave. May the great Jehovah protect and guide our glorious ship of state, safely through the fiery ordeal which envelopes it now, [thus?] prove to the world that "liberty and union are one and inseperable". May I progress in every thing that is enobling and be the happy recipient of a few of dame fortune's choicest gifts. Why shall I not be happy when millions of my fellow beings are? I attended Amos [Klepfus?] party where I enjoyed myself very much, returned home about four o'clock A.M. felt very cold.